Hellraiser: Judgment

"Hellraiser: Judgment" (2018, Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Dimension Films, Lionsgate Films) is the tenth film in the Hellraiser series.

We follow three detectives; Sean Carter (Damon Carney), his brother David Carter (Randy Wayne) and Christine Egerton (Alexandra Harris), as they work on a serial killer case. However, as the case progresses, they begin to find themselves involved into something a lot more hellish...

First off the bat, I went into this film with an open mind and I left fairly satisfied. "Hellraiser: Judgment" is innovative but fits into the Universe of Hellraiser well. While it is not devoid of flaws, it is an engaging film and one I will certainly watch again as I do the first 3 Hellraiser movies.

The opening of the film is very strong, with an introduction not only to the familiar, but different face of Pinhead (Paul T. Taylor), but also to an intriguing collection of new characters belonging, not to the Order of the Gash, but to the Stygian Inquisition; The charismatic Auditor (played by Tunnicliffe himself), the gruesomely gluttonous Assessor (John Gulager), a group of ageing naked ladies called The Cleaners and three young naked ladies with flayed faces called the Jury. Together, these loathsome creatures are in charge of assessing and condemning souls to hell. We also enjoy the brief presence of Cenobite Chatterer (Mike Jay Regan) and of Heather Langenkamp (of "Nightmare on Elm Street" fame).

The film doesn't precisely tie in to any of the other films, but enjoys a lot of nods to the previous films including, but not limited to, lament configuration/Lemarchand's boxes, the house at 55 Ludovico Place, a soldier past, the pillar from Hellraiser III and a few deliciously nostalgic lines of dialogue.

The new characters feel totally at home in the universe and the overarching murder mystery plot lines ties up nicely into the plot.

Where the film feels weakest are simply its fairly slow pace and a strange deviation near the end that felt a little out of place but was saved by a fun ending sequence. Pinhead is noticeably different, due mostly to simply being portrayed by a different actor. I hope that, given further opportunities, Taylor is allowed some more screen time in which to get his menace on.

The gore is good and in a pretty good abundance and there's enough twists and turns to keep you engaged. It feels a little like "Se7en" mixed in with "Hellraiser". And it was a refreshing change to the same old, same old concepts of the last few Hellraiser sequels.

[image: Dimension Films]

Hani

The Pyramid

"The Pyramid" (2014, Grégory Levasseur, Silvatar Media, Fox International Productions, 20th Century Fox) is a found footage film set in Egypt.

The film is set in 2013 during the time of the Eqyptian protests against the then Egyptian president, Morsi. A father-daughter team of archaeologists, Dr. Miles Holden (Denis O'Hare) and Dr. Nora Holden (Ashley Hinshaw), have discovered a lost, submerged, pyramid, near the Great Pyramid. They assemble a team to film the discovery and plan to investigate it further. Upon opening the entrance, however, a noxious gas emits killing one of the workers.

With this news and with the impending uprising in Giza, the team are ordered to leave their discovery and return home. An instruction that they obviously ignore. Instead, they send in their rover robot secretly, which is quickly destroyed by whatever is lurking in the tomb...

Naturally, they decide to go in anyway to retrieve what remains of the expensive rover kit, quickly get hopelessly lost and are soon faced with the perils of the labrynthine tomb and its murderous inhabitants.

Fristly, I'll mention that this film has not been loved by the critics and I can see why: its dialogue isn't the best; it is unclear whether it's a found footage film or not - jumping from the cameraman's on-screen camera to normal film view all too often; the characters are annoying and fatally flawed; and we are shown way too much of the big bad.

But, to the film's credit, it's got a few nice jumps and at least they had the guts to try making an Egyptian themed horror not about a rampaging mummy! If only they had shown a little more restraint in how much of the baddy was shown, I think that this little plot nuance could have made a more successful film.

For me, it was too similar to some much better 'lost in an ancient place' movies that I've seen recently ("The Descent" and "As above, so below" spring to mind), which were just more successful in creating their atmosphere. It also smacked a little much of a bad "Indiana Jones" wannabe film.

However, yes, it's corny but it delivers the goods to a point, and is definitely not the worst film I've seen recently. So, while it's not a masterpiece, it shouldn't be completely ignored.

[Image: 20th Century Fox]

Hani

Call Girl

"Call Girl" (2014, Jill Sixx Gevargizian, Sixx Tape Productions) is a short horror film starring Tristan Risk and Laurence R. Harvey.

The film is shot from the perspective of a webcam and we are introduced to Laurence R. Harvey's character who is planning to exploit his 'date night' with Tristan Risk's character. When the girl turns up, she is left momentarily while he fetches 'protection' only for something shocking to happen. Laurence definitely gets more than he bargained for though!

A really fun short made effective by good acting, an interesting camera perspective, the glitchy camera effects of the 'live feed' and some good ol' gore. A simple but effective plot shows some very competent film making and storytelling at play.

Great stuff! Catch it online!

[Image: Sixx Tape Productions]

 

Hani 

Creepozoids

"Creepozoids" (1987, David DeCoteau, Urban Classics) is a low budget sci-fi film about a dystopian future.

It was made the year before I was born. Stars scream queen, Linnea Quigley, and is just awful.

It's the kind of film that sounds like it should be a 'so-bad-it's-good', but it is just full bad... Never go full bad!

Boring, inane and full of bad dialogue... Unless you're a masochist, I think you'd be better off watching paint dry...

[Image: Urban Classics]

 

Hani

El Chupacabra

"El Chupacabra" (2003, York Pictures, Inc., Urban Girl Productions, Hard Gore, Paul Wynne, Brennon Jones) is a low budget monster movie about the legendary blood sucking goat killer, El Chupacabra.

When a secret operation run by  Dr. Goodspeed (Anthony "Treach" Criss) accidentally sets the blood thirsty creature loose it is up to an animal control officer (Eric Alegria) who wants to be a cop, a fact they stress... a lot...., and the author of an unpopular book about the creature itself, (Elina Madison), to try to capture it. Unfortunately a rogue detective (Jerry Rodrguez) and his sycophantic partner are also on the scene.

Terrible acting, a plot consisting entirely of holes and some amateurish camera work is everything you expect from a low budget bargain-bin horror... However, this particular film is also boring.

Not clever and certainly not something I'd watch again, I wouldn't even recommend this as a film for a bad movie night.

The only positives the film offers are that the animal control officer is good looking and the creature make up is quite good for low budget...

 

 

[Image: York Pictures, Inc.]

 

Hani

Bloody Cuts : Prey

"Prey" (Jonny Franklin, Ben Franklin, Ben Kent, Joel Morgan, www.bloodycuts.co.uk) is the third episode of the Anthology online series, Bloody Cuts.

A sexual predator (the rather dashing Fergal Philips pictured below) receives his comeuppance when he rufies the wrong girl's drink in a bar.

It's really a classic monster (short-)movie with a boogie under the bed deal, but with a set up that could be seen as more scary than the monster itself. Nicely put together with some good effects and some very good creepiness in the bedroom before the gore sets in to steal the show.

[Image: www.bloodycuts.co.uk]

Hani

Detention of the Dead

"Detention of the Dead" (2012, Alex Craig Mann, Gala Films) is a high school comedy zombie movie.

The term 'comedy' is used loosely, in that this shallow attempt at yet another zombie comedy falls pretty much on its face.

It's detention time at high school and 6 misfit teens are ready to spend it together. We have all the standard teen characters: goth chick, nerd, cheerleader, stoner, popular dude, varsity jacket dude.

Unfortunately for all of these unfortunate teens, the school has become infected by a zombie virus and even more unfortunately, someone in detention also has it. It isn't long until they're haring around the school trying to survive and find a means of escape.

Now, all that doesn't sound too awful, does it? But it's just so uninspired. From the half-assed Buffy references to the fact that the popular teen couple are called Brad and Janet just rung hollow to me. Maybe it was just that out of a day of pretty good horrors this attempt came last and it was 1am and I was out of wine, but I just didn't feel it.

Overdone, under-funny and nothing new, this film will doubtlessly land in the humongous boiling pot with all the other thousands of zombie comedy films out there. My advice? Stick on Shaun of The Dead, Wasting Away or Zombieland and enjoy some creativity.

[Image: Gala Films]

Hani

Friday The 13th (2009)

"Friday The 13th" (2009, Marcus Nispel, Michael Bay, Paramount Pictures, New Line Cinema, Platinum Dunes) is the remake of the first four original "Friday the 13th" films, pretty much, all mashed into one.

Well, what can I say other than, as usual, Michael Bay's stamp has once again brought mostly disappointment to a classic reboot which had so much potential. Although, it's not really his fault. He didn't direct it. It's the man behind 2003's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake, Marcus Nispel, who did all of that.

I'm just venting here. The main problems with this film is the sheer uncreative pitfalls which it falls into.

I love films which involve teens, cabins, woods, mishaps and murder. But, I also like a little bit of something different in there, too. "F13 Reboot" only goes through the motions and ups the sex and gore. The kills aren't tense or scary, and the characters are too same-y and obnoxious. I refuse to believe that all floppy haired boys in America are complete douche-bags!

The kills feel like they are just checking off the list and often I found myself sighing audibly and just waiting for the scene to end. I'm usually the relishing type. 

Jason is excellently played by Derek Mears, a mountain of a man, who gives us a faster-moving, thinking Jason Vorhees, still with menacing demeanour. The main fault in the Jason character is his severe lack of good lurking. Sure, he's lurking but he's too obvious, and where's the creepy 'from Jason's perspective' bits?

The film starts at the end of the original film, but also covers two separate groups of teens.The characters are disposable as hell, which is handy as they get disposed of as fast as hell!

The grounding point of the original F13 films is that Jason died because camp counsellors were drinking and having sex, instead of looking after him. And so, there's plenty of boobs and there's more sex scenes than horror... And who doesn't like a bit of beer pong and (slightly safer than real life) danger can?

The gore is good, even if the kill scenes themselves are just boring, long and nothing to write home about. But there's too much going on and just generally the film feels like an empty, oversexed gore-fest without any real comedic breaks (even if they do try hard to create this in three characters).

Of course, I can't really fault the acting, which, for an F13 film is excellent. Mainly because the actors playing the 2 Dimensional slasher fodder this time are actually known. Oh, and naturally, I do love Jared Padalecki, who makes this film flow a lot better than it would have otherwise as he searches for his missing sister (from the set of teens who were camping).

Now, I'm not saying it's anything worse than some of the other "F13"s out there, because, like all horror franchises, they jumped the shark so high they ended up in space... Quite literally, see 'Jason X'. 

Plus, we get to have the hockey mask!

But it's nothing new, and apart from being a vehicle for some young actors, a string to the director's bow and a fab creative project for the special effects guys, this film holds nothing I care about and probably doesn't even appeal to the teens of today, who should, in my view, really be made to watch the originals anyway! Give me a grainy, dirty, low budget slasher flick over this film any day.

First they beheaded his mother, now they're stealing his wild-growing weed!

Hani

Pet Sematary

"Pet Sematary" (1989, Mary Lambert, Paramount Pictures) is an excellent film based on the novel by Stephen King, about a cemetery which can bring the dead back to 'life'.

I saw this movie when I was 16 and I cried my eyes out at it! Seriously! And then I read the book this year (after finally getting over my fear of reading it) and guess what? Yep, I cried my eyes out all over again! On the bus to work at 6am, no less. Every day for a week! You can imagine what my colleagues were thinking!

Anyway, I can now watch the film without the aid of tissues. See, the story is so sad! And after reading King's explanation of his inspiration for the plot, I can see why it must have been a traumatic book for him to write! (Basically, he moved into the house pretty much described in the novel and almost lived the events of it! And being Stephen King, he drew on the aspect of the creepy little pet cemetery which was nearby).

A truly chilling tale, even for childless and free-living me, this film (and the novel, too), not only plays on the gory deaths, ghosts, 'zombies' and creepy woods, but also on the basic human instinct to protect the things and the ones we love. Can anyone really blame Louis for his actions?

Well, to cut a long story short, Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff) finds his idyllic life in the Maine countryside with his wife Rachel (Denise Crosby), daughter Ellie (Blaze Berdhall) and baby son Gage (Miko Hughes),  is turned upside down by a tragic accident. Accidentally given way too much inspiration by friendly and lonely old neighbour, Jud Crandall (Fred Gwynne - yes, Mr. Munster himself!), Louis sees there is only one solution to his terrible predicament! Of course, it will totally work out fine and no one will get hurt at all! Yup....

This film isn't long at only 98mins, and keeps your attention very well. Just like in the book, you begin to like some of the characters, and you enjoy the little happy family scenes. It lulls you in to a sense of happiness before it brings in the horror, and that's what makes the plot work. You experience the shock and the slow build up of dread with the characters almost in a 'real time' way.

Of course, there's some jolts to keep you interested along the way. Some brutal deaths, gory ghosts, scary babies and a pretty unfriendly cat to mention a few. This film had me upset as a teen, and I appreciate it for that. While it's not jump-out-of-your-seat scary, it's creepy and has some excellent gore scenes that still give me the shudders now!

Definitely one of the best King adaptations, he wrote the screenplay, and it shows! It follows the book's plot faithfully. The only thing I think I missed in comparison to the book is some of the character development. Louis isn't as rounded a character, and you don't get the lovely bonding scenes between the old man and young man. But I've never found a film that could convey as much as a good story can, and I think this film is fantastic! It's most certainly worth your time!

[Image: Paramount Pictures]

"Sometimes, dead is better!"

Hani

Thinner

"Thinner" (1996, Tom Holland, Spelling Films International, Paramount Pictures, Lions Gate Entertainment) is an adaptation of the Stephen King book of the same name. It's a story with a not so hidden message: Be a nice person and don't piss off any gypsies!... Or else!

This film has suffered from a lot of criticism, but I watched it with an open mind and can't really understand the harshness of some people's views. Yes, it's a simple plot, and yes it features primarily unlikable characters, but is that really so worthy of a damning review? I think not. For a start, I rarely like a lot of characters in horror films... Like most people I always wind up rooting for the bad guy! However, in a film such as this there is no particular bad guy or good guy. Just people being all grey and in-betweenish. Some are dicks and some are cruel, and some don't deserve their fate and that's that. Maybe that's why some people don't like this film?

Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke) is a morbidly obese lawyer. His wife, Heidi (Lucinda Jenney), is trying to get him to lose weight, but he's just not very motivated: he likes his food, he likes his booze and he's got money, why bother losing weight?

Their daughter, Linda (Bethany Joy Lenz), is his pride and joy, and out of all the characters, he relates most casually to her. His wife is a bit of a moan, so I can't blame him for that! ;)

Billy has just won a case for a known criminal and gangster, Richie "The Hammer" Ginelli (Joe Mantegna - yes, the voice of Fat Tony from 'The Simpsons'!) - so you know he's due some bad karma!

Aside from being fat, lazy and with a dubious set of morals when it comes to his profession (but then again, he's a lawyer!), I didn't see him as too bad a guy, really. His mates on the other hand...

There is a gypsy carnival in town, which is causing a stir, particularly amongst the local Judge, Cary (John Horton) and Police Chief (Daniel von Bargen), who are prejudiced against the gypsies and sexist to the young gypsy girl, Gina (Kari Wührer).

When driving home one night, and while otherwise occupied... Billy accidentally runs over an elderly gypsy woman, killing her! He finds a way to get around that whole problematic law thing about cars and killing folk, however, which results in him being faced with the wrath of the Gypsy leader, Tadzu Lempke (Michael Constantine), who curses him.

Naturally, the curse begins quite positively, as Billy is still eating like a horse, but is losing weight. It isn't until he realises that the weight loss won't stop that he becomes worried!

I found this film entertaining, and although the 'twist' was quite obvious, this is more from having read a lot of Stephen King stories, rather than it being uninspired. The characters are unlikable because this is their purpose to the message. I was confused, though, as to whether there was a secondary hidden message about being content and a nicer person and being thin, hungry and devious.... But maybe I'm over thinking it.

The effects are good, and quite gruesome, but not in a particularly gory way (most of the time). In particular, the thin Billy stuff is quite shocking. It's all a bit schlocky, which I like, and for some reason I felt this film was from earlier than '96!

Not many Stephen King adaptations are done successfully, but I like this one. It's got a good simple plot, some angry gypsies, curses, revenge, brutal off-screen deaths, back-firing revenge attempts, gangsters, fat suits, car chases, skeletal people... What more do you want?

Give it a chance, even if you haven't read the book!

[Image: Spelling Films International, Paramount Pictures & Lions Gate Entertainment]

Hani

The Ring (2002)

"The Ring" (2002, Gore Verbinski, Dreamworks Pictures) is the American remake of the 1998 Japanese film. Although I prefer the Japanese version and find it to have superior scares, this film is spooky and I highly recommend seeing it! I'm also thinking of trying to pick up an English translation of the book!

The basis of the plot: There is an urban legend of a VHS video tape which, if you see it, will kill you 7 days from first viewing. Some teenagers accidentally view it while in a cabin for the weekend, and soon all die off. Worried aunt, Rachel (Naomi Watts), of one of the deceased begins to investigate this phenomenon upon hearing of the legend and seeing the peculiarly timely deaths. She is also worried for her son, Aidan (David Dorfman), who was very close to his cousin.

In true horror movie form, and fairly reminiscent of "Candyman", Rachel watches the strange tape and then proceeds to show her ex-husband, Noah (Martin Henderson), and so on. Soon it's a race against time to try to solve the tape's origins and stop her impending death, while also experiencing the week-long haunting which comes with the sentence.

I enjoyed Naomi Watts' performance as the determined protagonist, as she slowly unravels the history of the tape and attempts to find a solution in order to help herself and others. She manages be both intense and strong without going into that annoying 'female lead' mode which involves a lot of screaming and hysterics.

Unlike Raimi, when he remade "The Grudge" some years later, Verbinski opted to take the story entirely out of Japan. I think both styles of remake have worked very well, and take nothing away from the story. But I do find "The Grudge" to be generally more scary, mainly because the ghost moves in a much more eerie manner than in this film, taking more styling from the Japanese originals.

The special effects are enjoyable, the tense scenes built up excellently and the enveloping story is good. There is a particular scene that I just can't watch again (I am a horse lover...)!

As I mentioned, I think the only reason this film just isn't as scary as the Japanese version is just the stylistic movements of the ghost girl, (Daveigh Chase), but the plot, acting and haunting scenes are good. And there are definitely scares to be had here, too! I especially enjoy the child actors in this film, who give a very convincing and unsettling performance.

[Image : Dreamworks Pictures]

Hani

Hybrid

"Hybrid" aka "Super Hybrid" (2011, Eric Valette, Anchor Bay) is a movie about a man-eating car. It's been a while since I watched the ultimate killer car movie, "Christine", and since I didn't have it handy, I thought it was high time to widen my killer car film horizons!

The premise of the film is simple: a squid-like creature with the ability to camouflage itself as anything in order to hunt its prey, has a particular penchant for cars. We see him out in the 'wild' (aka Chicago), eating some moronic club goers. But, when he gets into an accident, and is taken to a small garage run by a skeleton staff of randoms, the car decides to have a game of hide and eat... (sorry for terrible punnage... I'm bad for that!)

Our rag tag team of mechanics (with, what seems to have become recently obligatory in horror movies, the tough-but-not-butch female mechanic character), the dickhead boss and the secretery in the tiny skirt, work out pretty quickly what is going on (after a few of them get eaten first, of course) and quickly decide to capture the beast to see if it's worth some money.

So, trapped in the large building, the crew attempt to bring down the monster, while the monster (disguised as various vehicles) attempts to devour the whole staff. (He's a very hungry squid monster).

They seemed to very suddenly jump to the correct conclusion on what the creature is and seem to be completely unfazed by this, which always annoys me.

This film was very well put together and the background music is very.... Batman-y.... The production is very professional and the editing is excellent.

I liked the noises the monster car made, too. Something between an engine and a stomach growl. The animal morphs into a car, he's not wearing it like a suit, so the almost organic noise was very fitting.

The SFX of the monster were pretty good, considering budget, but they began to show too much, kind of spoiling what was otherwise a nifty little effect. I enjoyed the car's red vision as well.

I was confused as to how it ate the people, though. At first I thought it filled up with a kind of stomach acid goop and dissolved them like a venus flytrap (which I thought was suitably horrifying), but later it looked more like it had the tentacles and its mouth within the car cockpit... I liked the acidic idea more.

The car manages to have it's own presence as a creature, though, in the same way that "Christine" always does. So, I must commend them for that! It sneaks about convincingly and, similar to 'Robert the tyre' in "Rubber", it seems to waver between normal and menacing.

I wasn't too enthralled with the characters. The lead female was a bit of a moan, and the war hero mechanic angle wasn't played on enough with the most likable male character. It just seemed kind of thrown in there. There was also a lot of useless sub-plot build up for no reason: lazy boyfriend, cousin/nephew, war hero.... Wasted man-eating car screen time if you ask me!

The dickhead boss had so much promise, but he just didn't seem to be well rounded enough as a character. It seemed to me, to be written like a Bruce Campbell character, but they just didn't give the actor enough of the quips to take him from an asshole to a good-guy-with-asshole-tendencies.

While I've seen a lot better, I was pleasantly surprised by the professionalism in this film, and found the story suitably batshit crazy and also very well put together! It's worth watching if you're in the mood to watch a bunch of mechanics try to trap a monster car in a garage. If you're looking for guts, gore or jumps, it's probably not for you.

[Picture: Anchor Bay]

 

Hani

The Innkeepers

"The Innkeepers" (2011, Ti West, Dark Sky Films, Glass Eye Pix) is a haunted hotel story.

A slow burning jumper of a film, we follow the otherwise dull lives of two young hotel employees, Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy), who are manning the front desk for the final weekend of the "Yankee Pedlar Inn" being open. There are only a handful of guests staying at the doomed hotel, and the owner is away sunning himself in Barbados.

Claire is an awkward teenager, who has recently dropped out of college and is feeling lost in her now directionless life, as she prepares to lose her job at the hotel. She's heavily asthmatic and is also prone to entertainingly flaky outbursts and exasperated half-tantrums.

Luke is slightly older, and is also a college drop out, but unlike Claire, he is happily nestled into his rut in life. It is he who has the main interest in ghost hunting in the hotel, and he runs a website about the strange happenings. Although it becomes apparent throughout the film that his interests in the paranormal are primarily all talk and he is more of a lazy, casual enthusiast.

Luke's interests in the hauntings by a young woman who hung herself after her new husband left her on their honeymoon at the hotel, has become quite an obsession now with Claire, who is most likely trying to find something to fill the hole in her life. Luke is evidently head over heels for her, and although deep down he has no actual interest in finding or facing a real ghost, he keeps up the charade to be close to Claire.

One guest is a retired actress-cum-psychic who uses her divining crystal pendulum to communicate with the spirits. Now, I have friends who are into this kind of stuff, and I can promise you that is not how you're meant to 'use' a crystal, but whatever! I enjoy that the 'wise man' part is played by a 'wise woman', considering that the main character is also female.

It seems that Claire and Luke's meddling in the supernatural with their EVP recording equipment, video cameras and so on have caught the attention of the spirits and kind of pissed them off, because soon it seems that they are now after Claire. Although she doesn't help herself much. Seriously, I spent quite a lot of this movie shouting things like "Why? Why, Claire? Why are you going into the basement?! Didn't you listen to The Ramones song?"

The film is slow paced with little happening for a while. The repartee between Claire and Luke is realistically casual and good fun. In fact, for a while you can maybe even forget that you are watching a horror movie at all, as you just take in the lives of this young pair and their awkward not-a-romance.

Now and again, though, West likes to remind you that the hotel is haunted and give you a quick flavour of horror. Although it's not a guts and blood squelch-fest, these little titbits of ghostly activity keep the pace up and keep the audience engaged.

Back to the original style of ghost story telling seen in latter day black and whites such as "The Haunting", most of the jumps are false alarms or tension breakers which are thrilling and also lull you into a false sense of security.

My only problem with this film was the end. The whole way through, tension is built up and up, keeping you waiting on a twist that's not coming, a big finale, or a prelude to a non-existent sequel. But... nothing. The end is the end. The plot is rounded but also unfinished and the hotel remains haunted!

One thing you have to say though is, all those horrorfans who like to boast about always seeing the twist in a film, well you should make them watch "The Innkeepers", because they will definitely not see the 'twist'.

A good little yarn with some relatable characters and a setting that isn't actually overly eerie, despite following the same set up as "The Shining" (virtually empty hotel with ghosts).

Definitely worth a watch, but not sure I'd sing about it as loudly as others have done.

[Image: Dark Sky Films & Glass Eye Pix]

Hani